


I Miss You

by TheOneAndOnlyKey



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: Anna is sad, Gen, Homesickness, Hurt/Comfort, Not Beta Read, We Die Like Men, a little angsty, and misses her mum, but still good, i wrote this at 2am, im rambling, there’s not enough Anna content out here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:21:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26921302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOneAndOnlyKey/pseuds/TheOneAndOnlyKey
Summary: Slender fingers reached out to trace the portrait. Her face was the same, but still so so different. Not even the most talented painter could’ve quite captured those gentle but stern eyes, the frowning mouth that — if one was a good, obedient child — would quirk at the corners, nor the creases that gently framed her face. Yes, the portrait bore a striking resemblance, but differed so much that it tore open a wound long scabbed over.
Relationships: Catherine of Aragon & Anne of Cleves
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34





	I Miss You

She knew it had been a bad idea as soon as she’d turned the monitor on. Her fingers danced across her keyboard with the elegance of a ballerina, marching to her death. And yet, she couldn’t stop. Couldn’t dampen her curiosity, couldn’t satiate the burning longing just to look upon her face once again. 

So the words were engraved in her search history, a constant reminder of a lapse of control. 

Maria of Juliers. 

Mother. Mutti. Anna’s whole world.

One second she had been there, clasping the hands of her favourite child; the next, she had been receding from view, a gaping chasm drawing between them, growing with every strike of a horses’ hoof. And then, she had been gone. Gone forever, the news delivered in a flurry of quill strokes. 

Slender fingers reached out to trace the portrait. Her face was the same, but still so so different. Not even the most talented painter could’ve quite captured those gentle but stern eyes, the frowning mouth that — if one was a good, obedient child — would quirk at the corners, nor the creases that gently framed her face. Yes, the portrait bore a striking resemblance, but differed so much that it tore open a wound long scabbed over. 

Out poured the longing, the homesickness, the grief in an explosion of wails. Wrenching sobs that wracked her body in intensity. Oh, how she’d missed her. The gentle caresses in way of praise, the insistence that Anna stay by her side merely to keep her company, the way she smelt of tranquility. 

She hated it. Hated the way her chest felt like it was on fire, like it was going to tear into two. Despised the way the tears stuck to her chest and the way her breathing stuttered. Loathed the abyss that had swallowed up all of her organs, leaving her empty inside, and threatened to consume her whole.

So lost in her pain was she that she had not felt the arms encapsulating her until a voice broke her from her mourning. “You never had time to grieve, did you, hija?” Catalina’s voice cooed. A question, rhetorical in nature, that had her choking up all over again. So, in lieu of a response, she shook her head, turning to burrow into the older queen’s neck. 

She smelt like her mum. 

Once again her eyes flooded, spilling over onto Catalina’s collarbone, wetting her t-shirt (but she didn’t seem to mind, just began to rub soothing circles on her back). “I wanted to go home,” she managed to choke out, before whining: “I want to go home.” And she got a tuneless hum in response. Understanding. 

“Me too. I want to go home every single day.” Anna was gazing up at her now, tears still persisting to make tracks down her cheeks, but a quiet disbelief flickering within the depths of her eyes. Whoever would have thought that the indomitable Catalina De Aragon could be homesick too? “But we can’t go home, darling. Home is gone. We can only build what we can from the ashes of whence we came. You are my home now. You and Cathy and Kat and Jane and — well — even Anne, and I wouldn’t trade you for the world.”

A comfortable silence fell between the two, punctuated only by the quiet sniffling of the fourth queen. 

“T-tell me about it?” Anna asked, abruptly ending the hush that had encapsulated them both. 

“About what, querida?”

“Spain?” Her voice grew meek all of a sudden, uncertain. Had she overstepped herself? Been too bold? Had she read too much into the situation. 

Catalina’s good natured chuckle was enough to draw her out of her spiralling thoughts. “Ah, Spain. It has been such a long time since I last saw her.” Golden eyes began to mist with the presence of another time, as words began to tumble from her lips. She reminisced about all the differences between England and her mother country; she told anecdotes from her youth and stories of her ancestors, filling the air with life. She kept talking even when the weight in her arms grew heavier and her companion’s breathing levelled out, succumbing to her exhaustion. 

With gentle hands she combed through her short locks, and tried her best to let her know that, no matter how much she may feel like it, she was not alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if the ending isn’t very good, I wasn’t intending on finishing this but a friend pushed me so it’s just a... well, an ending. There’s not enough Anna... anything, really. Anna-centric content is sparse. So, have some angst!!
> 
> Please comment and/or leave kudos!! It’s like crack to me!!


End file.
